February 25, 2011

Going to the dogs open thread

by liberal japonicus

Hoisted from the comments (from bedtimeforbonzo longtime friend of the kitty)

...after almost three years following the untimely deaths of my beloved CoCo and Bowser -- we are again (since August) a two-dog household. Joining the indestructibe Hamilton, our loud and proud 16-year-old Beagle, is Cody, who was supposed to be my dream Black Lab. Finally getting the OK from my wife to become a two-dog family again, I had been following the website pawsforlife.org -- a wonderful rescue in Chesapeake City, Md., run, amazingly, by just four dedicated souls -- and found Tank. Just one visit and I knew he was the one. Friendly and 5 -- I no longer have the time or patience for a pup -- Tank, being a Lab, had plenty of energy and appeared simply majestic to me. So when my wife and son joined me a few days later to bring him home, I was as happy as I had been in a long time. Except my wife totally -- and, I mean, totally -- freaked at the sight of this gigantic, drooling, in her eyes, domestic wrecking ball. Would her reaction had been different if I had fallen for a smaller Lab? Don't know. Perhaps I should have realized he was named Tank for a reason. Anyway, I knew if we took Tank home, he and I would be spending most of our remaining days in the doghouse. So I figured we go home empty. Then Olga says, "Why not this one, Honey?" All along, this smallish (to me) white bundle of fur had been sitting on her lap, overdosing on the attention -- Cody, a Pappilion mix (the French dog named so for his huge butterfly-like ears), had been allowed to roam freely, uncaged, because of his size and all-around easy nature. I took one look at that precious little dog and imagined him adorning Paris Hilton's side, not wrestling with me in the backyard. Then I looked closer and saw how happy my wife and son looked -- not to mention 2-year-old Cody -- and realized this was going to be my big Black Lab. And now, of course, I am Cody's favorite and I simply adore him. He's a charmer, a lover, and the most comedic canine I have ever had. Wednesdays are our favorite -- when we are home alone a great deal and free to nap as we please. He's even sparked renewed life into the 112-year-old Hamilton, who, I think, might live forever. While I still need to take Wellubutrin and Effexor, Cody -- or any dog, to my mind -- is the perfect complement to help get me through those dreaded blue periods. And sometimes things do work out for the best. A few days after taking Cody home, feeling guilty and still thinking of that big Black Lab, I sent the lady who runs Paws For Life a pack of tennis ball for Tank. Soon after, the big Black Lab was adopted. Pictures on the website showed him on what looked to be a small farm where he was happily diving into a small lake.

As regular readers know, I tend to be a bit exuberent in drawing lessons from examples, but I have to think that the pack of tennis balls btb sent was what got that black lab adopted. I'm sure it can't be proven, but in my experience, small acts can have an outsize effects. And a special bonus lesson, I love the line "[I] realized [this French poodle] was going to be my big Black Lab". Good things happen when we bust up the categories we have in our mind, even though someone calling a small french poodle a big black labrador might be assailed as a violation of logic.

I mentioned the Blogospheric Users Relations Pact (BURP for short), and us having pet threads is a clear violation of that, as this is pretty clearly Balloon Juice territory. However in an attempt to avoid a blogospheric conflagration, I include a link to Balloon Juice's CafePress site and note that all profits from sales go to Charlie's Angels Animal Rescue, Brevard, North Carolina

Actually "Posted by liberal japonicus at 06:20 PM," who is traveling, and new to this, so forgot to put his name at the top. All credit his.

Bedtimeforbonzo, when you see this, since you may not have seen this comment from yesterday, be aware that Wonkie is having trouble posting, and wishes you to know that if she can't post -- although all she should have to do is try signing in another way, make sure not to let the comment box stay open for half an hour or more so Typepad won't time out without warning, make sure she does not paste messages in without typing an additional character(which then can be erased), make sure her browser cache is erased, not have other computer or browser troubles of her own, try using another browser, trying killing the process on her browser, try restarting her computer, all the usual solutions to one's own computer problems, or browser troubles, and it can't be a lasting Typepad glitch for more than a few minutes to half an hour or so -- but anyway, if she doesn't show up, she wants you to know it's her computer troubles, or Typepad troubles, or otherwise involuntary and that she really wants you to know that it's not personal, and she wrote me a couple of messages about this last night, so I'm letting you know.

Great to see you around, assuming you read this and show up, and if not, been nice seeing you, and come back as soon as you can, always great to hear about you, your dogs, Olga, your car selling, anything and everything, bedtimeforbonzo; please visit as often as you can, old chap. :-)

I'm just a long-term cat-sitter, but here is Shackleton, 14-year-old male bundle of wuv, and this may or may not work, and this may or may not work, and by the way, it also occurs to me that Wonkie's problems could be caused by automatic updates to her browser, or her security software, it's just impossible to say why someone is having computer problems without coming over and investigating personally. :-)

Still around, just have to renew my international drivers licence, make sure my reentry permit is up to date, pack, print out my tickets, figure out what bus I'm going to take, make sure mrs libjpn has all the contact info and a billion other piddly tasks. In short, perfect chance to procrastinate!

Gary, thanks for mentioning the missing byline and Janie, I hope I've fixed the pawsforlife.org link.

I always find it amazing how quickly a new dog makes itself part of the family so quickly -- which, I guess, shows they just want love and to give love.

Even though my wife bought one of those little dog beds, Cody adopted the couch as his -- when he isn't on a human lap -- as soon as he got home.

And I am amazed at the way he charmed my wife, who regularly reminds me how perfect he is. Most impressive, he's the one dog who she has ever let on the bed, which has led to the nightly ritual of him licking my beard until he's good and ready to settle between us.

I don't know what Cody is mixed with, but it's obviously a larger dog because he's much bigger than the ordinary "toy" dog breed, which helps the pride of the man who wanted a big Black Lab. (Love all labs, but have always found the blacks to be more striking -- unless we count Golden Retrievers.)

In the end, the blurb Ginny, who runs Paws for Life, penned next to Cody's photo on the website when he appeared for adoption was spot-on: She called him a big dog in a little dog's body.

The work Ginny and her right-hand man, Eric, do is awesome. Not only do they operate a no-kill shelter, but she gets most of her dogs from the Kent County SPCA in Delaware, many of them before they are to be euthanized.

Hey Bedtime, I happpy abut yur new dog! Did you now tht paillions are suppoed to be one of the most trainable breeds?

My old Blackie is still with us but barely. Deaf, nearly blind, heart trouble, arthritis...but as long as he sleeps well and eats well...

Still, crass as it may seem, I do have my next dog picked out. She's a polka dot pitbull named Mimi.

BTW the only reason I am posting tis is I used my husband's usser name. Typepad won't let me comment under by own. I have tried all the things listed by gary. So I won't be commenting until typepad gets over itsprejudice agfainst me. Its been three days now so I am not expecting the problem to end soon. Thank you everyone for putting up with my temper tantrums and typos. Its been fun. Take care of yurselves. Goodby

My husband had a brilliant idea: we changed my user name. Miracle! Now you all will be subjected to more temper tantrums and typos! Unless it's just an amazing coincidence and Type Pad just decided to relent.

Frak. LJ, Slart: I posted some comments with links to this thread, and they're in the spam folder, and as you know, or LJ, you might not yet, I can't do anything about that; only you, LJ, or Slartibartfast, as a holder of SuperUser password, or Eric Martin, can.

Hi Gary, I went to your comment and hit publish, but it is gone. I am absolutely positive that I hit publish and not delete (and I just deleted a few spam comments in the folder and it gave me a 'are you sure you want to delete this' just to make sure, but I can't find I can't find your comment anywhere. Sorry about that.

I assume - I *hope* - that it was the lunches, not the kids, who were eaten.

Yes, lunches only.

The same dog did eventually kill a neighbor's pet chicken, and generally freaked out all of the neighborhood kids (and parents) by running around with the bloody carcass.

At that point, we knew the dog had to go. So, off to the pound.

A couple of weeks later we got a phone call from a woman who wanted to adopt him. He had escaped from the pound (cinder block building surrounded by a four foot cyclone fence, then an eight foot cyclone fence), found his way somehow to this woman's home, and won her affection by growling in a protective way at the mailman.

"Do you have a dog answering to this general description?" the woman asked.

"Why do you ask?" my mother answered, anticipating further tales of bloodlust and mayhem.

"My old Blackie is still with us but barely. Deaf, nearly blind, heart trouble, arthritis...but as long as he sleeps well and eats well..."

Hang in there, Blackie.

Sounds a lot like Hamilton -- except Hamilton does not have heart trouble. His eyesight and hearing are going, worse is the arthritis in his hind legs, which at times he loses right from under him -- but he just picks himself up, or I help him, and he just keeps going.

Hamilton has always been one of the most independent dogs I've ever had. But seeing all the attention Cody gets has made him desire more, and it's especially nice when I'm sitting in the living room and he rests his head on my feet.

At 16, Hamilton is still a happy dog and gets his spurts of energy, like when he does that thing where he rolls on his back, wiggles and makes goofy sounds.

Cody does seem quite trainable, wonkie, but I think he's more intent on training us.

Russle I love your dog story, I love thhat dog. What a spirit! he clearly was an uppity dog.

My Boackie has never been one ro roll on his back for tummy tickles. Balckie would fail any temperament test. The only reason he doesn't bite everyone now is that his ai isn't good anny more.

Blackie came to us frm a resuce. He had licked the fur off his feet and butt from stress. he was blind inn one iey from untreated cherry eay and was mising one ear. His fur was dry and thin and he had nightmares and all kinds of weird phobias. He was abouut seven yers old.

He's a corgie/jack russel mix. I can't imaginne why anyone thought that would be a good idea! Combine a dog bred to nip with one bred to be hyper and reactive! Anyway he reacts to teh world with his mouth, always has always will.

The first thing he did at ouur house was hide under the coffe table and bite my husbannd.

He has a cheerful rgreeting ceremony when I come home: he runs along beside me, jumping up off is back legs nd bites my fingers.

Blackie loves to be scrtached and makes orgamsimic squeals and sqeaks of senosry overload and of course snapping his teeth.

he's a funny, contrary, pigheaded, and barky little animal.

I was out walking him a bout a year ago when he still went for walsk when I encountgered a neighbor with a pup. The neighbor proudly told me hthat he ahd paid over two hundred dollars toa breeder for his corgie terrier baby. I said, "That's what Blackie is!" The man looked at my dog and said, "Oh."

Well seves him right for buying from a breeder when he could have gotten a mixs breed pup frm a rescue!

Well Blackie been a lesson to me about all the passion and drama of being a terrier and all the bouncy sillinness of being a corgie. Mayve its ot such a bad commbinatio after all.

I am a lurker here but decided to come out of hiding to comment because I love pet threads.

My husband and I have had two adopted dogs in our lives together. The first, Bobby, wandered up to my husband in the parking lot of the office complex where he worked. The vet estimated that he was about 8 months old. As near as we could tell, he was a black lab/springer spaniel mix and was definitely a beautiful dog - long body like a lab and short legs like a springer, plus a longish wavy coat and the softest ears ever. He was a sweet boy who was absolutely obsessed with my husband. He lived to about 14 years of age and at the end suffered from stroke, seizures and incontinence. My husband cried like a baby when Bobby finally left us.

Our current dog, Petunia, was adopted through a local pet adoption agency. We got her from a litter of eight when she was about two months old. She's now a little over two years old and has all the irritating and adorable traits of a young dog. She is also a lab mix (yellow) and who knows what else. The pet adoption agency speculated basenji but we're skeptical. They're awfully rare dogs. But she does do this weird vocalization - the most talkative dog I've ever known. It's truly funny when she gets wound up and tries to talk to us. The whole family loves her, but especially our kids. She is extremely tolerant of their silliness and I never worry about her being aggressive or snappy. She's a delight and we look forward to many happy years with her. If we could only break her of running away when she's outside off-leash. She's really not a leash dog and never was, even as a puppy. Admittedly we haven't worked with her as diligently as we should have on building up her leash skills, mostly because she's such a PITA when we take her out on it. And when she gets wanderlust it's almost impossible to keep her from taking off.

BTW, we also have a rescued kitty, Layla. Rescues/adoptions are IMHO the only way to go. Too many animals out there need a loving home to go the breeder route.

"Well serves him right for buying from a breeder when he could have gotten a mixed breed pup frm a rescue!"

So true, wonkie.

Take one look at the Paws for Life site -- or any other, for that matter -- and you will not only find awesome-looking mixes (who I usually find more interesting anyway) but plenty of pure breeds. I think that's one of the reasons I gravitated to that rescue -- it seemed like Ginny has a penchant for loading up on Black Labs. And, of course, I wind up taking home a white Papillion mix with the coolest mocha markings on his face and the tips of ears.

Speaking of labs--I hope I haven't told this story already. I found a lab at at local gas station. It was the saddest sight--this poor old boy was soliciting people for help by quietly appraching them and thhen just sitting, like a good dog. Just sitting nicely. he'd get a pat now and then but most people ignored him. When one person finsihed pumping gas anddfrove away he'd go sit nicely by the next person.

This went on for a week.

He was in good health, overwieght actually but had no collar. At first I thought he was a neighborhood dog who was just socialble but I saw him on my way home one night when it was dark and rainy.

I started feeding him. I ask our kennel manager if we had room for him. She said we would after a couple adoptions. So I kept feeding him.

He was so grateful to be fed and petted. He was obviously a former pet wh desperately wanted pet status again.

I think he is a labmix because he is short, very sotcky and has a big gowly head. He looks like an enormous pug.

When the rescue had an openning I drove right out to get him. All I had to do was open the door and call. he ran right up and jumped in. We named him George.

My brother in law adopted him and now he lives a life of luxury. Typically he can be foundin "dead dog" position on the couch--on his back with his feet in the air asleep, so gratefu to be a pet again.

To be sure, that widget may be broken. It's old enough, god knows. But I haven't tested it myself. But if that's a problem, and OpenId really doesn't work? You can use any of those methods, and the most likely thing is simply that you're using one of the alternative Typepad sign-ins, so use another, have you tried that?

Or what method are you using to sign in? Do you see a captcha, or not? You've cleared your browser cache? Uused another browser?

I mean, it would take hours just to try all these methods, but the above should take about a minute.

There are limits to how far I can help someone absent standing over their shoulder. But there's no problem with Typepad, so all I can say, Wonkie, is that if you're able to sign in, but not with your own name, then, well, you're just Doing Something Wrong, and just do whatever it is that you're doing to sign in under your husband's name WITH YOUR OWN NAME.

I'm sorry, but I just don't understand what it is you're saying that can be. If you can sign in under a name, you can sign in under a name. It's just that simple, so far as I can see/know, and I don't know what else to say. I wish I did. I know this is frustrating to you, and I'm sorry, but... at the least you'll have to describe further what it is you're trying to say, please?

You're here:

Posted by: wonkie | February 25, 2011 at 10:18 PM

Posted by: wonkie | February 25, 2011 at 10:24 PM

Posted by: wonkie | February 25, 2011 at 10:49 PM

You write here:

BTW the only reason I am posting tis is I used my husband's usser name. Typepad won't let me comment under by own. I have tried all the things listed by gary. So I won't be commenting until typepad gets over itsprejudice agfainst me. Its been three days now so I am not expecting the problem to end soon. Thank you everyone for putting up with my temper tantrums and typos. Its been fun. Take care of yurselves. Goodby

Posted by: wonkie | February 25, 2011 at 10:24 PM

Huh? How can you post to say you can't post, and you're saying:

Its been three days now so I am not expecting the problem to end soon. Thank you everyone for putting up with my temper tantrums and typos. Its been fun. Take care of yurselves. Goodby

"One which has tremendous appeal, although sadly one in which I cannot participate, as my allegiance remains rive gauche, with a nice Cote du Rhone and vintage Mingus."

Created this thought train.

I am only familiar with Mingus through his recording with Joni Mitchell, backed by Weather Report who put a crimp in my jazz appreciation back in 1977.

I was doing some work for them(providing CO2 for their stage smoke) and got to watch them rehearse and for about 45 minutes they did nothing except make sure the switches on Zawinul's synth played the right sounds.

At the show a few hours later I was really left unimpressed with what they could do, wondering if they could play anything that wasn't prerecorded.

For many years after that if it wasn't Joni or Ricky Lee Jones or a few other jazz singers I just didn't bother with anything new.

Then I just happened to see the Pat Metheny Group in a little venue in NYC, not really knowing who Pat Metheny was, quite by accident about 18 years ago. It was one of those concerts that much of the time your eyes were closed and the music filled your brain completely.

So I decided jazz, even jazz fusion, wasn't that bad. It's not the blues but it's not bad.

CCDG/Marty
I'm a would have been jazzer (long story, to be related at a future open thread), but I just wanted to point out that jazz is the reason for the mortgage industry crash. Seriously.

Alan Greenspan played jazz sax (and was good enough to play in Woody Herman's Thundering Herd), but played a gig with a Stan Getz, who blew him off the stand. Greenspan said "I was a fairly good amateur, but a moderate professional. But what really did me in is I had, as an amateur, had to play next to Stan Getz. I was 16; he was 15. I decided, "Do I really want to be in this business?""

"Greenspan said "I was a fairly good amateur, but a moderate professional. But what really did me in is I had, as an amateur, had to play next to Stan Getz. I was 16; he was 15. I decided, "Do I really want to be in this business?""

First came Sue-Sue,
who followed the boy home.
Never again would he be alone.
The day she died,
he cried and cried.
Locked himself in the cellar,
told his mother he'd never come out.
Death? What was that about?

Little Tom came along next.
Found by the boy's brother,
he was unlike any other.
The first family dog,
he made them all strong.
The dad was very hard,
but not around that little mutt.
Tom could crack any tough nut.

Years passed,
boy became man.
Bonzo was never part of the plan.
But he became the best,
so different from the rest.
Strong and wise, so very, very loyal,
and when he finally died
the boy cried and cried.

CoCo and Bowser came together,
an ornery pair following old Bonzo.
Wherever he went, they would go --
CoCo, so Golden, his pretty girl,
Bowser all boy and no curl.
They made a perfect pair,
yet leaving this earth far too early.
It made the man bitter and surly.

Hamilton outlived them all,
now a bigger part of the home.
In time, the man did not feel alone.
They grew closer, sharing a special tie.
For old dogs do not lie,
especially this one with the gentle heart.
So we welcomed young Cody into the fold.
Together they will all grow old.

One way to stay friends with Harlan is to not respond to questions like that. :-)

Last time I made a slightly ambiguous comment in public, David Gerrold (and we've been friendly lately, since I helped him out with some Facebook issues, and we chatted -- it doesn't that his editor is one of my oldest and best friends, and David feels I'm a colleague, to use his word) helpfully printed it out for Harlan, and I got a phone call from Harlan (this was, to be sure, back around 2002-3).

Fortunately, Harlan and I being friends, his first question was "Farber, what did you mean by X? Aren't we friends?"

I'm not making this up; that was what he said.

And I said, yes, Harlan, of course, and what I meant was [two minute explantion] and we were fine, and the spent the next two or three hours talking about all sorts of other stuff, including my finally getting a chance to talk with him one-on-one about his early days in fandom, since I had all the copies of Cleveland Science Fiction Bulletin, the clubzine he fairly quickly turned into Dimensions, his personal fanzine, which was a terrific zine while it lasted, until he got Nydahl's Disease in advance, and handed off all the material to, um, Joel Nydahl, who incorporated it into Vega, and don't let anyone tell me I don't talk about faanish history on ObWi. :-)

But Harlan was so interested, since he never gets to talk to anyone about this stuff who knows what they're talking about, that he went and grabbed his old files and rummaged through them, and we talked specifics.

So it's a good thing I'm not talking about this in public where it can be googled....

But, seriously, Harlan is a wonderful guy, except when he isn't, that's true of all of us, he's a very large person, and I'll leave that there.

Like anyone who knows Harlan, I have lots of personal stories.

But it may be a mistake to open this door, because traditionally then people start telling Bad Harlan stories, and I really don't want to have that argument.

Especially when Harlan is about to turn 76, he's in very poor health, he's said he's gone to his last sf con, he's cancelled committed appearances, he's stated that he feels he's dying, his financial resources are being drained, and I think anyone who wants to bring up Bad Harlan stories, might want to simply be human enough to take that into account before launching into any.

I will mention that Jeff VanderMeer and I were chatting all of yesterday -- we'll be seeing each other in under two weeks, and finally meeting in person for the first time -- and Jeff had just released the Nebula nominations on Facebook before they went up on the SFWA page, and there's been some chat in The Community about Harlan's having had his name -- Harlan Ellison® -- trademarked and on the ballot as such.

(Although I'm reasonably sure he did that quite some time ago -- but a lot of people only just noticed this week when the ballot came out about yesterday.)

No smiley.

Smiley.

I really hope I don't regret posting this comment. I probably shouldn't. If necessary, I'll ask LJ to delete it. Let's stipulate that one doesn't want Harlan mad at you, that he's done regrettable things -- who hasn't? -- and leave it at that, if anyone feels compelled to haul out one story or another, rather than debate any specifics, please?

Or talk about the long chat I was having with Gardner Dozois on FB earlier today on one of my threads, about what we both disliked and liked about the Star Wars movies, and what Lester del Rey said about 2001, and then go back to cats and dogs, living together, playing jazz.

That's got a good beat, you can dance to it.

To add to my name-dropping, and as a diversion, my first cousin Elizabeth, who is in the music publishing business, had for many years, as her next door neighbor -- and this was not a coincidence -- Buddy Rich.

"This being an open thread, it's fair game to note that one big player in the mortgage loan collapse appears to be walking away from the rubble unharmed.

"Angelo Mozilo (and presumably his friends) seem to be no longer of any interest to the DoJ."

Despite all of the various types of fraud that led to the 2008 financial crisis -- the effects of which we are still feeling -- Mozilo wasn't the only player who emerged unscathed: not a single person went to jail.

Before beginning his acceptance speech last night, Charles Ferguson -- director of the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job -- made that very point.

Why is that?

Why is the Obama Justice Department unwilling or recluctant to prosecute the white-collar criminals, as shown in Ferguson's documentary, that brought the economy down and caused great hardship to millions of Americans?

Why is the Obama Justice Department recluctant to prosecute the white-collar criminals, as shown in Ferguson's documentary, that brought the economy down and caused great hardship to millions of Americans?

The question bears repeating, but not with the redundancy of "unwilling and reluctant." (Don't you just hate make such stimple mistakes?)

Why is the Obama Justice Department recluctant to prosecute the white-collar criminals, as shown in Ferguson's documentary, that brought the economy down and caused great hardship to millions of Americans?

Well, Joe Nocera had some answers, although I'm not at all qualified to know whether or not the excuses he offers are lame or not.

With the F.B.I. understandably focused on terrorism, there isn’t a lot of manpower left to dig into potential crimes that may have taken place during the financial crisis.

Is it "understandable" that the FBI is focused on terrorism (he says, to no one in particular)? I mean, a pretty good argument could be made that the 2008 financial crisis has caused more direct harm to more people in the U.S. than any other terror attack ever perpetrated on U.S. soil (or elsewhere), up to and including the one on September 11, 2001.

If taking away resources focused on terrorism makes too much sense, maybe we can take them from the war on drugs.

But, quite frankly, if the reason no one is being prosecuted for the 2008 financial crisis is lack of investigative resources then we're screwed in a way that's going to directly hurt many more people than terrorism.

At the show a few hours later I was really left unimpressed with what they could do, wondering if they could play anything that wasn't prerecorded.

Those guys were actually all great players, but they did quite a lot of coasting. By '77 Zawinul was more or less running the band, by sheer force of incredibly cranky will if nothing else. I'm not sure his direction was always motivated by artistic excellence, shall we say.

Metheny's a great player.

Here, BTW, is the Metheny interview that Thompson refers to. It's legendary in jazz circles, and in addition to being an intelligent dissection of bad pop jazz playing, is pretty funny. Metheny tries to keep it objective and non-personal, but then he just can't take it anymore.

If you are a blues guy, you might enjoy Mingus straight up, rather than (or perhaps in addition to) filtered through Joni. Lovely as Joni's stuff is.

Greenspan said "I was a fairly good amateur, but a moderate professional. But what really did me in is I had, as an amateur, had to play next to Stan Getz. I was 16; he was 15. I decided, "Do I really want to be in this business?"

If you have to ask yourself that question, it's not the field for you. Jazz is no career for weaklings. It's freaking hard. Very, very hard.

It's just a shame Greenspan didn't go in for something other than Economic Oracle. A stationery store, maybe, or a nice laundromat. Why not dentistry? Maybe sell some insurance?

"Today, Mr. Black says, the government doesn’t have nearly as many resources to pursue such cases (as it did with the 1980s Savings and Loan scandal that result in 1,000 felony convictions). With the F.B.I. understandably focused on terrorism, there isn’t a lot of manpower left to dig into potential crimes that may have taken place during the financial crisis. Fewer than 150 of the bureau’s agents are assigned to mortgage fraud, for instance. Several lawyers who represent white collar defendants told me that outside of New York, there aren’t nearly enough prosecutors who understand the intricacies of financial crime and know how to prosecute it. It is a lot easier to prosecute people for old-fashioned crimes — robbery, assault, murder — than for financial crimes."

Moral of the story:

White-collar crime -- good.

Blue collar crime -- bad.

Being able to afford a really good attorney -- priceless.

Why does it always seem to come down to the haves and have-nots in this country?